Pan Yao Infant Family Education Change Research

With its various branches and unique culture, Yao minority has being a hotspot for researchers in ethnology, anthropology and pedagogy. However, Pan Yao, which has the largest population and widest distribution in Yao minority, gained few research attentions from pedagogy perspective, especially when it comes to educational issues for children under seven years old.The purpose of this study (taking Kunlin Group, Gonghe Village, Jinxiu Town of Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County as case research sample) is to investigate the historical change of the Pan Yao’s family education for infants and young children since China’s economic reform, applying fieldwork, interviewing and document research methods. Based on the objective descriptions on the content and methods of Pan Yao’s family education for young children before and after the reform and opening up, this research summarized the functions, changes and causes for changing of its family education. The research also explored how to make a combination of Pan Yao’s traditional culture and its family education; how to promote the merge of modern schooling principles and Pan Yao’s current family education; how to meet the parents’demand of scientific knowledge of modern parenting, as well as the feasibility of establishment of village family mutual cooperative institutions for the future childcare. This paper is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is the introduction of the research’s background, purpose and methodology. It also summarized some existing researches related to Yao, Pan Yao and other Ethnic’s family education for infants and young children. Then the researcher pursuits the social and historical development trajectory of Jinxiu Yao and Pan Yao in four time contexts—the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Republic, after the liberation to before the reform and opening up, after the reform and opening up to today. It also provided the overview of Kunlin Group, the case which this study presented.According to literature review, the researchers ’fieldwork and interviews taken in Kunlin Group, the information of the specific contents and manners of the early childhood family education before and after China’s economic reform are described in detail in Chapter2.Before the reform and opening up, contents of Pan Yao’s family education includes the birth and raise of young children-prenatal care,childbirth and early infant care, the unique concept education of marriage and child rearing form, infant language learning, life skills teaching, moral education, religious and cultural education, and Pan Yao’s traditional game.After the reform and opening, changes have been made along with the progressing of the whole society. Although Pan Yao’s family education retains its traditional marriage and moral education, some changes have occurred in other aspects such as childbirth and early infant care, infant language learning, religious and cultural practices education and infant games. What’s more, education related to life and production skills has almost been replaced by modern knowledge education. Meanwhile, implementing of modern media is becoming more and more popular.After describing the specific content and approaches of Pan Yao’s family education for young children, this paper demonstrated the function of family education in different periods.Chapter3analyzed the changes in all aspects of Pan Yao’s family education before and after China’s economic reform, including the changes in educational philosophy-from living skill-based to developmental base; the changes in educational content-increasing attention to culture education; the changes in the ways of education-modern media’s involvement; the changes in educational function-processing to modem school system.When considering the root courses of such changes, the researcher found out there were many contributing factors, such as changes of the social and political systems, economic development, population mobility, the development of the modern school education, and the emergence of the modern media.In the last Chapter, this research deeply discussed the following four issues:1) how to make a mutual promotion between Yao’s traditional culture and its family education for young children;2) how to deal with the convergence of the traditional family education and the modern schooling;3) how to meet the parents’demand of the modern scientific parenting knowledge;4) the feasibility to establish a Family Support institutions for the care of children in Kunlin Group.The researcher does hope that, by implementing this research, we can record and save the "authentic picture" for Pan Yao’s family care of young children. The researcher also hopes this paper can make contribution to the physical and mental development of Pan Yao’s young children. Wish this paper can pave the path for subsequent researches in exploring ethnic minority’s education for young children.